Ok, here's 'my' 2 cents worth regarding the Yamaha styles issue: Many (most?) of Yamaha's styles did not orginate from Yamaha at all, but are copies of famous artist's styles. I really doubt that Yamaha paid the original artists (Beatles,Jobim, etc) for using these highly recognizable styles in their keyboard. In fact, this is the reason why Yamaha gave the song names in their 'Music Finder' cryptic names instead of the actual 'real' song titles names: ei "Sixty Four Years Old" for the Beatles classic "When I'm Sixty Four" or "All Shaken Up" for Elvis' hit tune "All Shook Up". Hmmm, Is Yamaha now applying a 'double standard' with us on this issue?

It was my understanding (from what I learned in the music writing class I took back in college) that typically a copyrighted song consists of more than just the style (rhythm) alone. Afterall, a song consists of an all essential melody & chord progression too. In fact this is one of the ways a number of classic jazz tunes got around the copyright laws; many jazz tunes (like "Donna Lee", which has the same chord progression as "Back Home in Indiana", or "Ornithology", which is based on the changes of "How High The Moon") used the same chord progression as a well known established copyrighted standard; jazz musicians would then improvise over the same changes creating a new melody and a new song.

- Scott

I've owned 5 Yamaha boards, I've always liked them. I now own a 2000. I love the board. I bought this board because I could play a wide varity of styles. you see when you play a style of music, in my case it's country, you can only find so many on a KB.
Many of the styls you never use. But when I can get Country styles from other sources.
You can custumize your KB.
If they go thru with this! THIS WILL BE My
LAST YAMAHA!!!


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[This message has been edited by Nobby (edited 01-28-2002).]

Scott,good point about Yamaha styles being copies of famous songs.
The copyright at question here is IMO a software copyright instead of a song copyright.

Bill E

Download the styles while they're hot. Share them when they're not.

Outside of the styles immediately available, from the CVP209, 9000 Pro, PSR9000, PSR2000, PSR740, PSR8000, there really isn't anything infringible worth downloading. The PSR10000 will come out in close to a year. Great. We'll share these through emails when someone gets their hands on them. If Yamaha makes it impossible to copy a style to a disk (and thereby edit them through a computer sequencer) then I will definitely skip Yamaha. In the meantime, this is an annoyance, but it doesn't mean I'll never buy Yamaha again. I will be a little more open to other keyboard brands, however.
Right now, I have hundreds of styles I downloaded from Spectromagic, and I'm having fun.

Larry

You're right Larry, but it's almost more the principal than the actual functionality that's involved.
There will always be a way to exchange styles unless they do something to "lock" them into the keyboard.
DonM

My opinion... what a idiotic move on Yamaha's part. Not only will they lose a few customers here, but word of mouth will cost them many others. I'll be the first to warn friends considering a Yamaha purchase about the company's new tactics.
And, to think, the availability and sharing of style files WAS a selling point for Yamaha. Now gone!
Tom

A few posts back Don Mason mentioned that Korg makes styles available on their own website. This is true. In fact : Korg, on it's own PA80 website posts links to sites that include it's styles from the I series. In addition, Korg has made freely available style conversion software for the PA80 and all of their styles from the PA80 remain freely available for anyone to download as part of the basic OS package. Ok, they don't tell you at the website specifically that their factory styles are part of a package for the OS that is easily separated, and then played and / or modified on the style conversion software, but one does not have to be a brain surgeon to figure it out and I'm betting that Korg is smart enough to
realize that anyone can easily figure out that they could get their styles in this way and convert them to midifiles and then from there convert them for use in other boards. Hey, even I figured it out, whichin itself is proof that anyone else could too.

Will Yamaha's actions prevent me from EVER buying one of their products? I'm pretty emotionally charged after reading all of this, so if I was to base my response on that alone my answer would be YES,
it will prevent me from buying ANY future product from them. Experience however, tells me that after I think the whole thing through, at some point MAYBE that will no longer be the case. It will ALWAYS, however, be one of the things I remember and take into account when considering a future purchase. Considering I never thought that Yamaha's styles or sounds were the best of the lot to begin with, in light of this development it certainly doesn't look like I'll be considering or recommending another Yamaha arranger again.

"Korg" AJ




[This message has been edited by Bluezplayer (edited 01-29-2002).]

"Technics (I think) has already acted on the issue by requesting that EMC StyleWorks not provide for conversion from their keyboards"

Well, you do not need EMC StyleWOrks to copy a style from one keyboard to another. You can use midi and then do reviocing. So I do not see the big deal, especially styleworks are very expensive in my own humble opinion.

However, this is a sign that companies will try to implement features to protect their styles. For example, they may prevent factory styles from being transmitted via Midi or being copied to user-style. If they do something like this, they will lose buisness big time. No serious musician will buy a keyboard without the above two features.

I think companies should be content that if somebody purchased some disks of styles, that those disks will not be copied or given to another user. They can win this fight, but they will lose and be hurt with other fights.

Personally, for me, not being able to access other styles isn't the end of the world, because I pretty much make up my own anyway, but as Don said, it's the principle of the whole thing. As far as other manufacturers following suit.. Who knows...? There has never been any indication that Korg will take this stance, but hey you never know do you ? The way their site is currently set up actually seems to HELP people to get access to their styles. Could that change ? Sure it could...I guess we'll see if it ever does.
You're right too SK..I don't need EMC to convert either for Yamaha or Korg styles. In fact , with the proper sysex codes, markers, and Casm information a style can be made manually on a sequencer if desired ( what a royal pain that is though ). I wonder though, will Yamaha next ask people like Michael P Bedesem who are making freeware style conversion software and related stuff to cease and desist as well?? Hmmmm if so... where does it all end ?


Cliff.. In response to your comment about what Yamaha should tell its CVP customers about the " $7K styles " being freely available to 2000 users, let me turn this thing around for just a second if I may.. What does Yamaha tell it's 9000 PRO customers when it is already been noted by several people here that some of the styles available on the much cheaper 2000 appear to be improved over the ones on the 9000 series ?? I'm only guessing here, but I really gotta doubt that too many folks will buy the 2000 instead of the 9000 pro because of a difference in styles. I'm guessing that the decision comes down to type of use and the many extra features and capabilities of a 9k Pro", measured against the price differences of the boards.


"Korg" AJ



[This message has been edited by Bluezplayer (edited 01-29-2002).]

corrections:
technics have a style conversion facility included free with the top keyboards, for various Roland, Solton, Korg, Gem format styles.
I believe I saw an upgrade disk for the keyboard which includes Yamaha available in Germany.

EMC software has enabled Yamaha conversions for many years now.

The EMC software does not support 6500 format yet. This is because Technics use a proprietry compression format, which makes the floppy 3 to 5 times faster than previous generations. It is this algorithm that I understand Technics has not licensed to them yet. I suspect it may appear after the next keyboard is released.

The point about a style obviously being based upon a song is the most pertinent here.

Do we know for sure that Yamaha has not paid some kind of royalty for this popular style?

Sure, as with technics, the names are cryptic in the database - maybe this is to avoid a royalty?

Likewise intros and endings do not follow the same notes/chords for more than 4 or 5 notes to avoid copyright infringement?

I think this move is purely based on a global downturn in sales, and their worry of losing sales due to the latest styles being available in existing keyboards...

[This message has been edited by technicsplayer (edited 01-29-2002).]